Welp.
Here we go.
First, let me say that for a dictator, Trump really sucks at it.
When he issues an EO, as he did halting offshore wind farm developments, and opponents and climate cultists scurry off to court to get an injunction to block it, the administration stops and waits until it all settles out.
Each and every time.
It's happened so often that the president and his Interior Secretary Doug Burgum came up with what I thought was a brilliant workaround at the end of April. If you couldn't close the projects still in planning stages down without massive amounts of legal warfare ensuing, buy the leases back if the companies were willing to do so. Shut them down that way.
...Never one to let the grass grow under his feet, Trump and his Interior Secretary have gone about finding a novel way to foil these projects that infuriate true-believers but leave them only sputtering for lack of tools to do anything about it.
The power of the purse.
They're offering refunds to the companies that have already spent money on offshore leases, in some cases working a one-for-one trade out, spending that money onshore in oil and/or gas exploration.
It turns out that, as overextended as these companies are, as expensive as the industry has become, many wind developers were more than willing to bite that apple.
The very first was TotalEnergies with their projects off the Mid-Atlantic coast.
...The first to bite the apple at the end of March was French firm TotalEnergies, which had leases off the North Carolina and New Jersey coasts.
AU REVOIR
The Trump administration’s $1 billion payout to a French energy company to walk away from U.S. offshore wind development is a novel tactic against the industry that supporters see as creative — but opponents see as foolish and extreme.
The Interior Department announced Monday that TotalEnergies agreed to what is essentially a refund of its leases for projects off the coasts of North Carolina and New York, and will invest the money in a liquefied natural gas export terminal in Texas and other fossil fuel projects instead. The department hailed it as an “innovative agreement” with the French energy giant so that the “American people will no longer pay for ideological subsidies that benefited only the unreliable and costly offshore wind industry.”
Ah, well. So much for the sweet sound of victory and common sense.
Letitia James and her blue-state AG buddies banded together to get the buyout that would save American taxpayers and ratepayers big bucks squashed.
They're suing to get those windmills built.
When climate activists can’t win at the ballot box, they run to court.
— Alliance For Consumers (@for_consumers) June 2, 2026
Now blue-state AGs are suing to force Americans deeper into expensive, unreliable offshore wind.
Consumers shouldn’t be forced to pay a backdoor tax for unreliable energy projects no one wants and voters… pic.twitter.com/H6kwxDJ6Pp
WAAH
New York’s attorney general is leading a lawsuit against the Trump administration to challenge its deal that put an end to a French energy company’s offshore wind projects.
As part of an agreement with the Trump administration, TotalEnergies said in March it would stop developing offshore wind projects in the U.S. and will instead invest in oil and gas production in the country. The government said the company would be paid $928 million—the value of its offshore wind leases—which would then be reinvested into oil and gas projects.
The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by attorneys general from New York, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Vermont.
“We are fighting back to stop this illegal agreement that threatens to erase over a thousand union jobs and cheat millions of New Yorkers out of clean, affordable energy,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said.
'Illegal agreement' and 'clean, affordable energy' are doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
...The attorneys general say the cancellation of the TotalEnergies offshore wind projects will harm their states’ economies, energy grids and climate goals. They say in the lawsuit that the Trump administration’s deal violated the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, asserting that the Interior Department was required to hold a hearing and specifically find that the lease would cause serious harm.
The suit also alleges that the deal violates the Judgment Fund Act because the promised payment wasn’t intended to settle a lawsuit or court judgment.
Seems like a real waste of state taxpayer dollars to fight something that returns subsidy money to the federal taxpayer (in the form of reinvestment in onshore fossil fuel industry projects) and that the wind developer is happy with.
...“I know people keep saying it’s ideological. It’s not; there’s a real national security risk,” said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum at a recent hearing on Capitol Hill.
TotalEnergies said at the time of its deal with the Trump administration that the costs for developing offshore wind now look too high to be worth continuing in the country, and aren’t in the best interest of the U.S.
But that consideration has never stopped a progressive from bitching and trying to spike something good.
And believe me, it was all the sour-faced usual suspects lined up for this.
...The lawsuit asks the federal judge to vacate the lease cancellation and settlement agreement with TotalEnergies' subsidiary, Attentive Energy.
State attorneys general from Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Jersey are also plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Purple-haired Skeksis says what?
As the war in Iran deepens the affordability crisis, Trump is doubling down on making life unaffordable by canceling more offshore wind projects.
— Rosa DeLauro (@rosadelauro) June 2, 2026
CT families need more sources of energy to bring down costs. Thank you to Attorney General Tong for continuing to fight back.…
...Thank you to Attorney General Tong for continuing to fight back.
WHUT
Let’s go! Trump’s use of the Department of Justice as his personal piggybank is corrupt and must be stopped. Congress cannot let Trump use taxpayer dollars to kill offshore wind. pic.twitter.com/paCyZHITmf
— Ed Markey (@SenMarkey) June 2, 2026
One step forward...
Pile driving the ocean floor, unsurprisingly, harms the environment and undermines crucial fishing grounds. @mtkblb shares with @JCats2013 how proponents of offshore wind ignore the concerns of commercial fishermen in their push to industrialize the oceans. pic.twitter.com/ejdIIFAGUy
— NE Fishermen's Stewardship Assoc. (@fishstewardship) June 2, 2026
...two steps back, every blessed time.
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